Page 81 of Denied Access

“Messiness?” Stan said.

“Your friend didn’t just kill a Russian team. He slaughtered them in broad daylight and left their bodies for the locals to find on one of the port’s busiest streets. And he used me as his distraction. I’m afraid my time in Tunisia is at an end.”

Hurley wasn’t sure what annoyed him more—the mournful way in which Volkov voiced the last sentence or that when he looked to Rapp for confirmation, the assassin merely shrugged. If this conversation dragged on for too much longer, he was going to have to trade his coffee for something stronger.

Like heroin.

“Three million,” Hurley said, “and two more as a success fee.”

“Very generous, but there’s the matter of my legend. I’m afraid that my emergency clean passport is no longer so clean. If I could trouble you for a half a dozen more aliases, I—”

“Three,” Hurley said. “Two of your country of choice, but the third has to be German.”

“Ja. That will work nicely.”

“Fan-freaking-tastic,” Hurley said, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Now, if there are no more contractual issues to discuss, how about we get down to—”

An electronic warble interrupted him. Rapp reached into his pocket and withdrew a cell phone. Hurley gave the kid his best scowl, but Rapp ignored him as he answered the call and held the phone to his ear.

“Allo?”

Rapp stared at the table for a beat as he listened. Then his black orbs found Stan.

“It’s Greta.”

CHAPTER 43

HURLEYdigested the news his protégée had just relayed in silence.

Up until this moment, Rapp had only experienced the physical hardship that came with his newly chosen profession. Sore muscles from long hours of physical conditioning, bruises that were the by-products of combative sessions on the mats, and the like. He’d even weathered the type of damage that could be life-ending in the form of a gunshot wound to his shoulder, but he’d yet to navigate the type of pain that time never really healed.

The pain of relationships ending.

Hurley couldn’t hear Greta’s end of the conversation, but he could see thunderclouds forming on Rapp’s features. Hurley had given up on marriage after multiple attempts, and he didn’t even try to count the nonmatrimonial relationships that had gone up in flames. This job was an unforgiving mistress—a truth Rapp might be about to learn firsthand.

“Hang on,” Rapp said as he stood. Holding the phone against his chest, he turned to Hurley. “Bedroom?”

“Down the hall,” Hurley said, pointing to the right. “She okay?”

Rapp gave a curt nod as he brought the cell back to his ear. “Run me through that once more.” The assassin continued to voice encouraging sounds as he headed for one of the flat’s two bedrooms.

“My, my, my,” Volkov said, “intelligence work has changed since I’ve been out of the game. I didn’t realize the new generation took calls from home while working in the field.”

Hurley shot the Russian a surly glance, but didn’t bother to correct his assumption. The less the former KGB officer knew about Rapp’s personal life, the better.

Besides, Volkov wasn’t wrong.

Each of the women who’d held the title of Mrs. Hurley had known he’d worked for the CIA—attempting to hide your employer from your spouse was a fool’s errand—but none of his ex-wives knew what he actually did for the agency. With each, he’d used some version of the story that he worked in an administrative role. One of the legions of paper pushers for whom employment at Langley wasn’t all that different from laboring at any other federal bureaucracy. Even then, he’d never taken a call from home while on the job. Instead, he’d directed his wives to use an answering service set up for this very purpose. The idea of fielding a call from a significant other while sitting in a safe house in a foreign nation was preposterous.

But here they were.

“I appreciate the relationship tips,” Hurley said, reaching for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket, “but maybe you should sit this one out.” He shook out one for himself, lit it, and then slid the pack and Zippo across the table to the Russian.

“That was uncalled-for,” Volkov said. “I appreciate what you did for me in Berlin, but there’s no cause to rub my face in it.” His accent thickened as it always did when he was angry, but he still accepted Hurley’s peace offering. Snaring a cigarette, he placed it in his mouth and lit the end in one practiced motion. Snapping the silver lighter shut, he inhaled and then blew a sweet-smelling cloud toward the ceiling. “I’d quit this disgusting habit, you know.”

Stan did know.

That was the point.